Archive | February, 2016

Tips For Reaching Your Muscle Building and Fat Loss Goals!

Want To Sabotage Your Goals? Do This!

Want To Reach Your Goals? Do This!

Muscle & Fiction, Huh, what’s that?

More than 96% of the people who start out on a diet and exercise program, fail to stick with the program after 6 to 8 weeks! Why?

ANSWER… Because they grow physically and mentally weary in that amount of time. Why? Because they become over-worked from the training routine and underfed from the inferior diet.

What do I mean? Well – – the person starts out with the best of intensions. Sets a goal for them self, starts a workout program that they found on the internet or magazine or their favorite celebrities “no-fail-program” to get in shape. They get all pumped-up and start first thing Monday.

Then…

By Friday night they are making any and every excuse they can conjure up in their mind to convince them self that it’s “okay” to have a pizza or ice cream or any unhealthy delight that they crave that will surely go against the diet plan they started on Monday morning. You know it’s true… it’s happened to me, you and millions of other well-intentioned people.

Why?

Because they read and follow the advice of what I call “Muscle & Fiction” programs and literature. You are bound to fail, you will have no choice but to fail, because… you are following the fictional, inaccurate, fad diet advise.

Do you want the “2-Step-Secret” to guaranteed fat loss and muscle gain? Yes? Okay then, follow this.

#1… QUIT reading all the Muscle & Fiction Bullsh#t – There is no “eat-whatever-you-want-diet” for losing fat and getting in shape. If you allow yourself to believe that cr@p then you deserve to fail! Am I being harsh? NO, I’m being “HONEST” with you. Eat crappy foods and you’ll build a crappy body. You can’t defy the laws on nature, plain and simple!

#2-1… Do what makes sense and feels right – You can’t take years of your life building an unhealthy body and expect to “make-it-healthy” overnight, especially eating processed, denatured and refined foods, it’s IMPOSSIBLE, the human body was not and is not built that way – you have to build healthy blood which in turn builds healthy tissue, which in turn builds healthy bones, and you know what? – – that takes time, what kind of time? – not days, not weeks, but months – – and maybe a year or more if you have really abused your body! make sense? It better or you’re doomed to failure if you think you can fool the ‘laws of nature”. People want to do it quickly, without pain and all pleasure, that’s why “Muscle & Fiction” exists. It panders to your emotions, not you logical brain.

#2-2… Train and eat in a healthy fashion that is best suited for ‘your-body” not someone else’s. Weight train no more than three times a week. If you are weight training in a progressive, continuous regimen you will not be able to weight train more than three times a week. If you can weight train more than three time a week I can guarantee you are not training hard enough, if you train hard and intelligently, you will not be able to train more than three times a week!!

Eat to live, don’t live to eat! You can create easy to make, delicious and nutritious foods that build you up and stop the cravings for sugar and sodium and fatty foods. Food to the body can be like a drug – eat the wrong foods and you’ll trigger the mechanism for wanting more of the wrong foods and drinks. It’s a vicious cycle that always end’s in disappointment and frustration. Eat clean, eat healthy – lean meats – – clean carbs – – plenty of vegetables – – fresh fruit and clean water.

Soooooo..

Quit following the Muscle & Fiction – follow the best diet, and the best diet for you is that “diet that works for you” always.

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1200 Calorie Diet Menu and Meal Plan

A 1200 calorie diet is nutritionally adequate for most of the people for a healthy, safe and permanent weight loss. Starving your body with fewer calories will slow down your metabolism and consequently using up of the calories by the body will also get decreased. This will result in a tired and emaciated body and also the weight loss will not be as much as expected because the calories are still stacked up inside the body.

Following a daily diet of 1200 calories is shown to be nutrition rich to support a healthy body and also brings about the calorie deficit which eventually leads to weight loss. Of course, the actual calories that should be taken depends on a lot of factors such as age, gender, metabolic rate, body size and other medical conditions to name a few. 1200 calorie diet plan fits most of the people on average but it is necessary to confirm with a doctor or dietician before starting with the diet.

How to choose the best 1200 calorie diet menu?

The diet plan should be chosen in such a way that it strikes a proper balance of the macronutrients. The macronutrients include proteins, carbohydrates and fats. The calories that come from the macronutrients should be ideally distributed as follows: 15% of the calories should come from proteins, 55% of the calories should come from carbohydrates, 30% of the calories should come from fats and only less than 10% of the total calories should come from saturated forms of food.

When the diet plan is composed of healthy, nutritious and wholesome food it will keep your food cravings in check and you will feel full for longer. Moreover there will not be any compromise to your health when you follow a diet that satisfies all the above conditions. A diet is followed to make us healthy, supple, strong and slim. Any proper diet should work to achieve all of these. Therefore make sure that you take nutritious food whose calories add up to 1200 or so.

Sample 1200 diet plans:

Below are two diet plans whose total calorific value comes around 1200. From this you can get an idea of how to construct your diet.

Sample 1:

Breakfast

One whole wheat muffin with a spoon of peanut butter and half a banana.

Mid-Morning Snack

An apple and few almonds.

Lunch

2 slices of whole wheat bread; 2 oz. low sodium turkey breast; 1 oz. cheese; a lettuce, an orange, a tomato and a spoon of mustard.

Mid-afternoon snack

8 oz. low fat yoghurt

Dinner

3 oz. skinless grilled, baked or boiled chicken breast.

A cup of cooked broccoli and 2/3 of a cup of brown rice.

Snack

A cup of milk and two fat free fig cookies

Sample 2:

Breakfast

A hard boiled egg, 2 slices of whole wheat bread smeared thinly with butter and a large slice of watermelon.

Lunch

100gms of baked potato and baked beans and 100gms of reduce fat cottage cheese.

Snack

Muesli meal replacement bars.

Dinner

Pasta salad made with olive oil. Wash it down with tinned tuna in brine.

Typically any 1200 calorie diet plan can be broken down into the following proportions: The breakfast is the most important meal of the day and makes up 300 calories of the entire 1200 calories. The mid-morning snack adds up to 100 calories, lunch to 300 calories and the mid-afternoon snack to 50 calories. Finally the dinner contributes to 450 calories of the total. Any nutrition rich diet plan that follows this breakdown can achieve good results in terms of weight loss. Snacks can be taken at any time of the day where you feel the need to snack. But timing is important for breakfast. Make sure that you finish you breakfast within an hour of the time you woke up at. For the rest of the day, timing is up to you and you can divide the calories as you want among the meals, but make sure that the total calories don’t exceed 1200.

Last but not least, wash down you meals with lots of water. Adequate amount of water is absolutely essential for maintaining the metabolism and for the healthy functioning of the body. Keeping your body well hydrated is an important factor that constitutes weight loss. Make it as a habit to drink at least eight glasses of water each day. It may look difficult at first, but once you start making conscious efforts it will no longer seem as hard as it was at first.

A word of caution:

Before you kick start on a diet, please catch up with your doctor or dietician and get expert advice on the meal plan that you have formulated. This is especially important for pregnant or breast feeding women. You don’t want to follow some diet and weaken you body, so always ask for the doctor’s opinions and then jump into your diet plan.

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Muscle Building – Upper Body Core Workouts

These are called core  workouts  because they  workout  more than just one  muscle . These are the upper body exercises that you have probably heard of, but maybe you don’t really understand why they are so important to  building  strong  muscles . If you think you understand why these are so important for gaining muscle mass, I still recommend reading on.

1. Bench press – You often hear guys talking about how much they bench as a testament to how strong they are. The bench press primarily works out your chest, shoulders and triceps. These are the three muscle groups that many people notice when you take your shirt off. This is also why many guys want to gain muscle mass in this area. The bench press is a full upper body workout, which is why it is very common for people to ask how much another person benches, as it tells a lot about ones upper body strength. If any one of the main muscles are weak (chest, shoulders and triceps), your bench press is going to reflect that.

2. Shoulder Press – This is another core upper body workout because it also works out a lot of the upper body. Obviously the main muscle group that the shoulder press works out is the shoulder. But if you have ever done a shoulder press, then you probably know it also works out the triceps. While this is not quite as good as the bench press, it is still a good compound core workout.

3. Inclined press – this is basically right between the shoulder press and bench press. It goes about half way between shoulder and bench press, and is slightly closer to the shoulder press in that it mainly works the shoulders. However, it does also work the chest.

So that’s it, those are the three main core upper body workouts. Now, many people will probably say that there are other core upper body workouts, but those are the main ones. It is also important to understand that there are variations to these exercises. For example, you can use dumbbells instead of a bar. They also have machines for these  workouts  which work your  muscles  slightly differently. You should also keep in mind that these workouts work out your abs and other areas of your mid section (hence the name “core” workouts).

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Nutrition For Toddlers

During the second year of life, children show more and more interest in food, but parents may notice that they eat less or are more choosy about what they eat. Growth rates slow at this time and many toddlers seem to eat less compared to the first year of life. Those taught to eat wholesome, fresh foods will be more likely to prefer these foods for life.

Introducing cow’s milk

Children at this age will usually want to eat what the people around them are eating and reach out and grab foods and drinks. It is therefore a perfect opportunity and very important to set a good example at this time, your child will also make the transition from breast milk or infant formula to whole cow’s milk and should be drinking out of a cup rather than a bottle. Their expanding palate is ready for new textures, colors, and flavors, and it is the perfect time to offer a variety of healthy foods, not only for their three meals a day but also for their snacks.

Starting good habits now

Eating habits formed in the first two years of life are thought to persist for years, if not for life, so it is important to establish healthy habits as early as possible.

Children begin expressing personal preferences at an early age. Parents must guide a child’s healthy food choices and allow the child to determine what and how much he or she wishes to eat.

At time, it may seem to you that your child is not eating enough food. But forcing children to eat something that they do not want makes them stubborn about their eating habits. By allowing some independence at this age you will be helping alleviate mealtime problems in the future.

Preventing choking

The risk of choking is particularly high for young children because they may have problems chewing. It is best to avoid giving young children small pieces of fruit, such as whole grapes, raw vegetables, or chunks of meat, such as slices of hot dog, as they could be a hazard. Instead, cut them into tiny pieces or thinly sliced sticks, and for very young children, boil well and then mash or puree foods. Wet or juicy foods may slip down a child’s throat without being chewed properly, so give these foods one at a time.

Serving sizes: 1-2 years

Children aged 1-2 years need foods from all the food groups, but with fewer and smaller servings than older children. For each food group, the daily number of servings and some examples of a serving are described below:

  • 4-6 servings of grains and their products. Examples of a serving include ½ slice whole-grain bread or 1 cup cereal.
  • 2-3 servings of vegetables. For example, 2 tbsp peas, 2 slices cucumber, or 2 tomato wedges.
  • 2 servings of fruits. For example, ½ apple or 4floz (120ml) fruit juice.
  • 2 servings of dairy products. Servings include 4floz (120ml) whole milk or 1oz (28g) cheese.
  • 2 servings of protein sources. Examples include 1oz (28g) meat, chicken, or fish, ¼ cub beans, or 2floz (60ml) cottage cheese.

Sample Menu: 1-2 years

Breakfast

  • 2 mini waffles with low-sugar syrup, 4floz (120ml) fruited yogurt, and 4floz (120ml) dilute apple juice (half juice, half water).

Snack

  • 1 cup fruit salad and 4floz (120ml) whole milk

Lunch

  • 1 cup macaroni and cheese with green peas, 4floz (120ml) milk, and ½ banana

Snack

  • 2 graham crackers and 4floz (120ml) dilute apple juice

Dinner

  • 2oz (55g) white-meat chicken with ½ cup cooked brown rice, ½ cup soft carrots, 2 slices of cucumber, and 4floz (120ml) water

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Building Lean Muscle Means a Good Diet

Two of the most interesting and frustrating statements that people make are, “I just want to tone my arms,” or “I just want to lose a little fat around my stomach/legs/butt/whatever.” Or this one, “I don’t want to get bulky, I just want some lean muscle.”

The simple truth is that all three statements are false, to be charitable – or delusional, to be a little harsh. Let’s not be harsh, let’s say that these folks are just misinformed. There is no such thing as toning (what is toning?). There is no spot reduction. Tom Venuto has a great article about doing 1000 sit-ups a day. And if getting bulky were easy, we’d all be extra-large.

But  building  that lean  muscle , there’s something we can talk about.

Weightlifting, strength training, bodybuilding all do one thing and that is make you stronger. Along the way, as a byproduct of getting stronger, the muscles will grow. A small percentage, maybe 10% of men and 1% of women will get big, as in bodybuilding big. The rest of us will get some size, bigger than your average bear, but by no means a grizzly.

So, as you lift and challenge yourself at every workout, your muscles will get stronger and a little bigger. The visual effect will be a hard muscle. When people feel you, you will seem less like a marshmallow and more like a size of beef. That’s good.

And it’s all lean muscle – good right.

So, why do some look – well – bulky? Where’s the muscle definition? And you said that getting bulky was a myth!

Well, here’s the thing, exercises make your muscles stronger and leaner. Dieting strips the fat from your body and shows it off. In fact,  dieting  is really what makes your  muscles  stronger and leaner.

Exercises tear down your  muscles  and  dieting   builds  it up. Simple, I understand; nevertheless, it is fundamental to building a leaner, meaner (in a good way) you. The two go hand in hand.

You cannot simply set a goal of  building  a leaner, muscular you without having a clean balanced  diet  to furnish all the nutrients. Larry Scott used to say that nutrition was 80% of bodybuilding.

If all you did was push-ups, pull-ups, dips, one legged squats, deep knee bends, crunches, and reverse crunches; you would do great, so long as your diet was good.

In fact, a good diet is your insurance policy. Whereas, you could have the greatest workouts in the world, but if you dieting is terrible and lazy; then you will have no progress. Clean balanced  diet  is the key to  building  a lean, muscular body.

A good diet doesn’t need Hoodia or apple vinegar cider whatever. A good diet consists of plenty of water, lots of veggies and fruits, fiber, complex carbohydrates, and balanced sources of protein. It does not include high fructose corn syrup, processed sugars, alcohol, white bread, and fast foods or Ho-ho’s. Okay, I’ll fight you on Ho-ho’s.

So, the equation for  building  lean  muscle  is the same as getting stronger: training to maximum effort plus good  diet  plus lots of rest equal great, strong body. Can’t beat that.

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Healthy Diet Meal

Having a slim and healthy body is great. Everybody dreams about it. Many people try to achieve that dream by following a certain appropriate diet for them. Unfortunately, this diet program is not quite easy to follow. It is not only about what they consume or eat which is not easy also, but it is more about how they prepare what they should eat or consume. People usually do not have enough time to prepare the healthy diet meal. The diet food that they need sometimes has to contain certain ingredients and specific nutrition. It is a hard task to manage the nutrition, especially for people who work everyday. It will be too much time consumed and wasting energy. This is also the reason why many people fail on their diet. It is not because they can not manage what they eat, they can do that.

But how to prepare the food is the most difficult job to accomplish. But there is a saying that says ‘nothing is impossible’, and that sentence is often right. This time business people have the role to make it possible. They provide a service for people on diet who have the problem of preparing the diet food. They do not only prepare the food for people on diet who need it, they also deliver, and even maintain the nutrition of the food. The nutrition is counted and maintained based on the diet that people take. They call this service as Diet Meal Delivery. It seems to be good news, isn’t it? Frankly, indeed it is. The services can give you what you need based on what you plan on you diet program. They usually have their diet program packages to be offered to the customers, or they can just follow on your diet meals that you have planned before.

The best thing you get from this service is the maintenance of nutrition. Many people often feel difficult to monitor what and how much nutrition that they have eaten in a day. Fat, carb, glycemic, and sugar are the nutrition that they need to concern about. By using this service, people on diet should do is only to eat. The nutrition of the food has been taken care, it works great and you do not have to worry checking about the nutrition of the food you eat. It is done by many nutrition experts, so you can absolutely trust to the people who work on it.

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7 Simple Tips to Build Muscle Fast

Body Building training has become very popular these days, there are many people like teens, professional body builders, athletes, etc. that practice body building, some as a sport, others as their professional job.

The following 7 Tips are MUSTS if you want to save time, money, and maximize your success in a shortest amount of time.

1. Define your personal fitness goals

Set realistic and measurable goals and attack them with the right mindset. Always aim high but be realistic. If you create goals that are unattainable you are setting yourself up for failure. You can become bored, disappointed and disillusioned to the point where you may

give up. Don’t sell yourself short. Set your long term goals, of course, but also set

short term goals that are achievable.

Without knowing that you could end up spending more money than you need to on equipment that you’ll never fully utilize. Not to mention you may fail in your attempts to achieve your goals. And, don’t forget to reward yourself when you do achieve them.

2. Warm up

Warm up before you lift weights and do it every time you go to the gym. Regardless if you’re doing high reps with light weights or low reps with heavy weights, you must adequately warm your muscles. Start by doing 5 – 10 minutes of light cardio work on a stationary bike or treadmill. Then before each exercise take approximately 40% of the weight you’ll be using and do a couple sets of 10 – 12 reps.

3. Eat healthy

This can’t be stressed enough. The only true bodybuilding aids are good nutrition. Consult a

licensed dietician. Watch your local community calendar for free seminars on diet and nutrition. Learn all you can about what nature freely provides that can help you to develop a healthy diet.

Many novice body builders think that because they are trying to build muscle, they can eat any kind of food that they want. Well, this is not true, because eating a dozen donuts will not build muscle, it will build fat. Thus, an important body building tip is to eat foods that are filled with protein, like eggs and meat. Also, be sure to eat other foods that are rich in vitamins.

4. Mix-up your Workout

Don’t do the same workout twice in a row. Keep shocking your muscles. Don’t allow your body to adapt to any set routine. There are many ways you can change your program and sometimes the smallest changes can be all the difference. Use different exercises, set and rep patterns, do things in a different order. This is good for your motivation as well.

5. Take supplements

Supplement your diet with high quality protein. Get 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight per day. Spread out this protein over the 5-6 small meals that you are going to eat.

It’s hard to get all the protein, carbs and amino acids you need for optimum muscle growth from food alone. Some people say they don’t need supplements, but most people will benefit from them.

6. Drink plenty of water

Always have water with you and Drink 8 glasses or more of water per day. Water is nature’s miracle supplement. The benefits of drinking a lot of water are limitless.

Water helps to build muscle by transporting nutrients throughout the body and helping deal with your high protein diet by flushing the kidneys. Drinking water is also good for overall health.

7. Take a rest

Make sure that you get adequate sleep and rest.

Keep your rest intervals between sets at 45-60 seconds. This will give your muscles enough time to recover but still keep them fatigued.

Rest is another important part of muscle building. When you train you’re actually breaking down muscle tissue. The actually repair and building process takes place while you’re resting and asleep. If you don’t get enough rest you’re limiting your muscle growth potential.

Almost all body builders have differing opinions on the subject of what the actual purpose of body building is. Body building is the process of developing muscle through the combination of weight training, increased caloric intake, and rest.

These body building tips are basic but they are also very important. Incorporate all of these body building tips into your routine and you’ll see better results and avoid injury.

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Chihuahua Care And Nutrition

One of the most important decisions the owner of a small dog faces is what to feed the dog.  Nutrition  is certainly one of the most important aspects of Chihuahua care. A dog that weighs only four to eight pounds and stands only six to nine inches high – like the Chihuahua – has to watch it’s figure! Canine weight gain is something all Chihuahua owners have to watch out for. Every bite a Chihuahua eats has to be packed with  nutrition  and taste.

Chihuahua care is more difficult in this respect than, say, caring for a large dog. Large dogs can eat a lot more food than Chihuahuas, so they have more chances to get the  nutrition  they need. A typical Chihuahua should eat only about a cup and a half of food a day. The Chihuahua has to eat high quality food to keep up its stamina and to maintain healthy teeth, gums, skin, and coat. Owners who are experienced with Chihuahua  nutrition  know that feeding the best diet for a Chihuahua can prolong the dog’s life and enhance its lifestyle.

Knowing what not to feed your Chihuahua for  nutrition  is at least as important as knowing what to feed it. Some foods that cause no health problems in humans are toxic to dogs and should be avoided at all costs. Chocolate, onions, and garlic are three such foods.

Chocolate is one of humankind’s favorite foods, but it is poisonous to dogs-even in small amounts. Any amount of chocolate a Chihuahua consumes can cause damage, so if you even suspect that your Chihuahua has eaten chocolate, take the dog to the vet or emergency veterinary hospital as soon as possible. Your vet will give your Chihuahua the care it needs to alleviate the effects of chocolate on your dog’s health. The symptoms of chocolate poisoning are vomiting, diarrhea and excessive thirst, but these symptoms may not show up for several hours, so it is important to get your Chihuahua medical care immediately.

Some Chihuahua owners elect to cook and prepare all of their dog’s food on their own instead of feeding the dog commercial dog food. Proper food is such an important part of Chihuahua  nutrition  that these owners feel like it’s worth the effort to know what is in their dog’s food. Some owners eat only organic food themselves, and they want to their dogs to enjoy the same organic experience.

Dog food is simple to make. The best dog foods include a meat protein, a starch, and a vegetable. By combining these three elements, any owner can make home-cooked meals for their Chihuahua. All ingredients should be cooked before feeding them to your dog. Lean beef, pork, fowl, or lamb should be grilled, sautéed, or roasted and rice, potatoes, or noodles can be boiled or steamed. When it comes to vegetables, Chihuahuas prefer sweet choices like carrots and peas. Cooked food should be cooled completely before feeding it to your dog.

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Take Your Muscle Building Workout to the Next Level With These 10 Techniques

During your muscle building workout program, you’ll at some point see a slow-down in your progress, particularly as your body becomes accustomed to your weight training exercises and routine. Therefore, the best way to take your muscle building workout to the next level is to change it. I don’t just mean change the exercises, I mean change everything, including the way you usually train.

Fortunately, to advance your muscle building workout, you just need to make a few simple changes every couple of weeks. This will keep your muscles “shocked” and stimulated, encouraging your body to build muscle faster.

Here are my top 10 tips to take your Muscle Building Workouts to the next level:

1. Change Exercises – This is the most obvious thing to do, but still some people don’t change their exercises. At least every 8 weeks, change your workout and replace the exercises. For example, change the leg press machine for squats. This will target new muscle groups and requires different form.

2. Do Heavier and Fewer Reps – Decreasing your reps and increasing the weight will mean your body must utilise more power to lift the weights, resulting in more strength gains and ultimately, better muscle mass gains. If you normally work in the 10-15 rep range, try decreasing to 4-8 reps for a few weeks, where on the last 1-2 reps you train to failure.

3. Reverse Your Workout – Rather than doing your exercises in the same order each workout, reverse the order completely and vary the exercises slightly. This means you’ll be your strongest on the exercises you normally finish on. For example, to vary an exercise slightly, do incline bench press instead of flat bench press.

4. Shorten Rest Times – The less time you give your body to recover between sets, the harder your muscles will have to work on the next set. This can be harder than you think, so make sure maintain proper form and decrease the weight if you can’t.

5. Do Drop-Sets – A drop-set is where you start off your exercise reasonable heavy (after a warm-up) and continuously performing the exercises by dropping the weight off until you can do no more. For example, you start off barbell curls at 40kg, do 8 reps, then you drop to 35kg and try and do 8 more, you then drop off another 5kg and do the same. You’ll be surprised how quickly the energy seeps from your muscles until even the lightest weight feels like it weighs a tonne!

6. Do Super-Sets – A super-set is when you do 2 (or more) exercises back-to-back in a cycle. It’s great for boosting your metabolism too and should make you sweat buckets. This is my favorite method for 2 reasons; it speeds up my workouts and I really get a fantastic burn in my muscles.

7. Split You Muscle Building Workout – If you aren’t already doing a split routine, I suggest you do so. You can perform say legs one day and upper body the next, or even split your routine over different body parts if you are at the gym daily.

8. Use a Stability Ball – Don’t shy away from the stability ball as they allow for a great variation of exercises that require excellent balance and strict form, which in itself is great for your core.

9. Progressively Add More Weight – This is the easiest and most common muscle growth technique of all. Just remember, if you aren’t increasing your weights on a regular basis you aren’t getting stronger, so you won’t gain muscle mass, you’ll simply maintain your muscles as they are now.

10. Switch Weight Training Equipment – This is another simple method that’s often over looked. You may prefer doing the barbell bench press, but switching to dumbbells will hit a different variation of muscles. Variation is the key.

In Summary.

Periodically, by adding a few of the above changes to your muscle building workout, you’ll see continued muscle growth and a noticeable increase in your overall fitness levels. If one of these methods does not suit you, then don’t do it, but do try and mix up your workouts often. To reiterate my first and most important point, I personally change my entire workout routine every 8-12 weeks after taking a week off, to allow my body to recover completely before resuming training on a new workout regime.

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Metabolic Diet – Basic Concepts

The metabolic  diet  is based on the importance of managing your insulin level, too much insulin over an extended period of time leads to accumulation of body fat and too little leads to a muscle break-down. Neither is good for a healthy life style. The flip side of these negative effects are that higher level of insulin has an anabolic effect, simply put, it helps you build muscle mass. A lower level of insulin has a catabolic effect, in other words helps you lose weight.

Structured phases

To achieve the benefits of building muscle mass and reducing or maintaining body fat the metabolic  diet  is structured in two phases. A low carbohydrate, high protein phase that lasts for 5-6 days and then a moderate carbohydrate, moderate protein phase that lasts for 1-2 days. The approach of phasing your  diet  in a structured way is called structured phase shift  diet . Most famous  diets  such as the Atkins  diet , South Beach, Zone are all monophasic  diets , in other words they are built on one phase which you have to maintain with little variation. The monophasic  diets  may be successful but ask anybody who have tried, it’s like balancing on knife’s edge and while that may be doable for a certain length of time it is very challenging to do so over months, let alone years. The metabolic  diet  brings you the best of two worlds, you optimize the positive impact of insulin as a muscle builder while minimizing the adverse impact of insulin in body fat AND to do so you break up the tough low carbohydrate phase with a short moderate carbohydrate phase to allow for variation.

Those of you who are familiar with the world of bodybuilding will recognize this as it is very popular among body builders to maintain a strict  diet  5-6 days a week and then have one “eating day” when they eat whatever they can get their hands on and in which ever amount they can handle.

Inspired by our ancestors

The phasing is actually similar to how are ancestors ate. For most of the human history, all the way up until agricultural society, humans were hunting for meat. They enjoyed this high protein, low carbohydrate  diet  for a few days and then shifted over to a more carbohydrate rich  diet  until the next kill. At that time carbohydrate rich meant naturally growing plants, vegetables and berries.

In this way the metabolic  diet  is very similar to the paleo  diet  but there are two important differences. The paleo  diet  is monophasic which, as you know by now, means that you have to maintain constant ratio of carbohydrates to protein and fat. Secondly, the shorter moderate carbohydrates phase of the metabolic  diet  is more liberal than the paleo  diet  and you will find that the menu typically includes pizza, pasta, rice and bread.

Metabolic  diet  in modern society

The phases of the metabolic  diet  are such that it is fairly easy to accommodate a social life. If time the 1-2 day moderate carbohydrate phase to the weekend you can join your friends for dinner without the torture of refraining or being heckled by your friends.

The  diet  of modern society is based on abundance with little consideration of nutritional value, impact on hormone levels and body composition. Carbohydrates are easy to produce in high volume and to store, in Europe it is potatoes and in Asia it is rice.

Since a high carbohydrate  diet  is such a big part of culture it can be very difficult to break away and implement the 5-6 day low carbohydrate phase.

Getting started

I will get you started on your journey to a healthy life with tips on how to implement the metabolic  diet  and how to incorporate regular exercise in the coming articles but for now I want you to try this for a week: Pick your main meal of the day, let’s say it is dinner. For every second dinner during the next 7 days replace your “modern society bulk carbohydrates” (rice, pasta, potatoes, bread, etc) with vegetables. Try to get fresh vegetables and mix the colors.

This may require some planning as it takes a bit more work to prepare vegetables than to boil pasta. The easiest way, and to me the tastiest, is to just wash the vegetables, sprinkle them in olive oil and put them in the oven for 45-60 minutes.

It is important that you follow through and have a total of 4 meals with vegetables instead of your typical staple carbohydrate before you evaluate.

So, get started on your journey to a healthier life style and I’ll be back with more tips on the metabolic  diet  soon.

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